Christian author Randy Alcorn has warned in the wake of the Bill Hybels and many other evangelical sex abuse scandals that too often the same mistakes are repeated.
Alcorn, who is also founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries, mentioned in a blog post on Monday several recent cases of sexual misconduct and abuse that have rocked the evangelical world, from university professors to pastors taking advantage of students and congregants.
While he did not mention Willow Creek Community Church and its former senior pastor Bill Hybels by name, he summarized the scandal at the megachurch:
“One of the most prominent pastors in the country, from one of the most prominent churches has had numerous women come forward accusing him of sexual advances going back many years. The entire board and most of the pastoral staff have resigned, some of them due to realizing they had defended the pastor and discredited the victims and hence disqualified themselves,” Alcorn described.
“Last I heard the pastor was still denying he’d done anything wrong, despite the testimonies of all the women, including highly credible people in the church ministry. If these things had been taken seriously and investigated from the beginning, the outcome could have been very different, and a great deal of the harm to victims could have been prevented.”
The author said that as tragic as it is, such scandals are “nothing new.”
“The evangelical landscape is littered with the carcasses of lives and ministries decimated by sexual sin. For every well-known Christian television personality or evangelical leader who commits sexual immorality, there are any number of lesser-known local pastors, Bible teachers, and parachurch workers who quietly resign or are fired for the same,” he added.
“Most of us can name several, some dozens, and some many more. Three Christian leaders I know of sat down together and between them came up with a list of 250 names.”
Alcorn pointed out that ministry is a sacred trust, and that violating it for sexual conquest “is a particularly deplorable behavior.”
It’ll be a tall climb to bring about racial reconciliation—even in the Church. But one group has its hiking shoes on.
On Thanksgiving night in 1915, William J. Simmons, a former Methodist minister, and approximately 15 other men climbed Stone Mountain outside of Atlanta, set a cross on fire, and proclaimed the birth of the revived Ku Klux Klan.
To reinforce the connection between the revived Klan and Christianity, they placed an altar beside the burning cross, and on the altar they placed a sword and a Bible.
It would be nice to tell you that this attempt to link the Klan to Christianity was an aberration, but that would be a lie. The ties between preachers, churches, and the Klan were deep and widespread. An infamous 1922 photo shows a group of klansmen in full regalia standing at the front of a church under a sign that reads “Jesus Saves.”
It’s a shameful story, which makes me all the more happy to tell you about a group of Christians who are seeking to write a new story—one more in keeping with the Lord’s intentions for his Church.
On August 25, thousands of Christians will climb to the top of Stone Mountain with a very different purpose in mind. Led by Garland Hunt, the senior pastor of the Father’s House in Norcross, Georgia, and Billy Humphrey of the International House of Prayer, they will gather “to renounce racism and dead religion, and covenant together to move forward through reconciliation and revival.”
The organization behind the event is OneRace, which, according to its website, is “focused on engaging millennials” and on “confronting the historic division between black and white.”
It is hard to know what to think of the bombshell dropped by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who released a scalding letter on Sunday (Aug. 26) calling on Pope Francis to resign. Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, claims in the letter that Pope Francis knew that recently resigned Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused seminarians when he was a bishop in New Jersey but nonetheless didn’t punish the cardinal.
The 7,000-word document also accuses about a dozen Vatican cardinals who served in the papacies of John Paul, Benedict and Francis of being part of the coverup.
It might be easy to write Viganò off as a disgruntled employee. He was denied the job he sought under Pope Benedict XVI — president of the governorate of the Vatican City State — and was sent to the United States as papal nuncio, or representative to the U.S. government and the American church. In a 2012 memo to Pope Benedict, which was leaked to the media, Viganò complained that he was being exiled because he had made enemies trying to reform Vatican finances.
Nuncio to the United States is no minor job, but the head of the Vatican government normally becomes a cardinal.
Viganò became even more unhappy with his job as nuncio after the election of Pope Francis, who ignored his recommendations in the appointment of bishops. And although most nuncios to the U.S. later become cardinals, it became clear that he was never going to get a red hat.
It is worth noting that many of the people Viganò accuses are the same people with whom he had conflicts in the Vatican.
Nor is this the first time Viganò has criticized the pope. He joined Cardinal Raymond Burke and others in criticizing the pope’s document on the family, “Amoris Laetitia,” because they thought it diverged from orthodoxy.
Disgruntled employee? Yes. But many whistleblowers are disgruntled employees.
What is more damning are questions about Viganò’s own record regarding the American sex abuse scandal. During legal proceedings against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, a 2014 letter from Viganò was uncovered in which he told an auxiliary bishop to limit an investigation against the local archbishop and to destroy evidence.
Viganò was certainly not known for transparency and accountability while he was nuncio from 2011 to 2016, but now he presents himself as a born-again defender of the abused.
In the letter, Viganò goes after many former and current officials in the Vatican, including the three most recent secretaries of state: cardinals Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio Bertone and Pietro Parolin. Other Vatican cardinals he alleges knew about McCarrick’s abuse include William Levada, Giovanni Battista Re, Marc Ouellet, Leonardo Sandri, Fernando Filoni, Angelo Becciu, Giovanni Lajolo and Dominique Mamberti.
Given how the crimes of Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionairies of Christ, were ignored during the papacy of Pope John Paul II, some of what Viganò says sounds possible. But no evidence is presented.
Interestingly, John Paul escapes Viganò’s criticism. Viganò implies that McCarrick’s appointment to Washington and as a cardinal was the work of Sodano “when John Paul II was already very ill.” Yet McCarrick was appointed archbishop of Washington in 2000, five years before John Paul died. Was John Paul a puppet during his last five years in office? And if McCarrick’s abuse of seminarians was so widely known in John Paul’s curia, it is hard to believe that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not know. Did he tell John Paul?
Viganò claims that Re told him that, sometime between 2009 and 2010, Pope Benedict told McCarrick to stop living at a seminary, saying Mass in public, traveling and lecturing.
But there is no evidence to support the claim that McCarrick was sanctioned by Pope Benedict. McCarrick continued to celebrate Mass, travel and lecture throughout the papacy of Benedict. And on his many visits to Rome, he stayed at the North American College, the residence for U.S. seminarians. Anyone who thinks Benedict would tolerate such disobedience doesn’t know Benedict.
President Donald Trump speaks during a White House dinner attended by over 100 Christian leaders and their spouses in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 27, 2018. (PHOTO: FACEBOOK / FRANKLIN GRAHAM)
A Christian theology professor has warned conservative evangelicals who believe President Donald Trump is like the biblical Cyrus that he’ll “turn on them in a moment.”
Roger E. Olson, professor of Christian Theology of Ethics at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, wrote Monday on his blog that some Trump-backing evangelicals see him as “something of a messianic figure.”
He clarified that he’s not talking about everyone who voted for Trump, but specifically evangelicals who “lionize Trump as a kind of new national messiah” and see him as “our Cyrus,” referring to the biblical king.
“Cyrus was, of course, the emperor of Persia who died in 530 BC. During his approximately thirty year reign he released the Hebrew people in exile to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple that was destroyed earlier by the Babylonians,” the theologian described.
“He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible several times and always favorably. There is one obscure passage in Isaiah that even attributes messianic qualities to him.”
Olson pointed out that the Hebrew people did not consider Cyrus one of them, but saw him as a powerful ally that was raised up by God to deliver them from bondage. He noted that some evangelicals, in much the same way, believe that God is using Trump to deliver them from persecution.
“These people see themselves as a remnant of the conservative Christianity that once made America truly great,” he argued.
“Their view of American history is a downward slide toward not true pluralism but suppression of traditional Christian values,” he continued.
“They truly believe that Trump, even if he is immoral and criminal (the latter has not been proven, of course), was raised up by God to reverse the trend in American culture toward total decadence and hedonism. But even more, they believe God raised up Trump not because he is one of them but because he hears them and will put a stop to efforts by government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. (e.g., in the Department of Education) to persecute Christians.”
As everyone not living in a total news blackout knows by now, the former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has issued a call for Pope Francis to resign his office, on the grounds that the pontiff knew (because Viganò says he told him) about the sexual sins of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and did nothing about it (until he did).
The call came in the form of a long letter accusing an array of high-ranking prelates (mostly but not exclusively progressives associated with Francis) of protecting clerical abusers and covering up evidence of their wrongdoing.
Sufficient reason would be that in 2014 Viganò himself, as nuncio, put a stop to the investigation of the then archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. On Sunday, Viganò issued a statement denying that he he did anything of the sort.
The basis for the charge against him is a July 7, 2014 memorandum on the Nienstedt investigation written by Dan Griffith, a priest and canon lawyer who managed the investigation as the archdiocese’s delegate for safe environment. The 11-page, single-spaced document was sent to the archdiocese’s two auxiliary bishops — Lee A. Piché, who had overall responsibility for the investigation, and Andrew Cozzens — shortly after the two lawyers hired to investigate Nienstedt’s behavior tendered their resignations.
Griffith, profoundly upset, tells the story of how the investigation was shut down. Briefly, the lawyers had come up with a large amount of compelling evidence that Nienstedt had been abusing seminarians and engaging in flamboyant sexual activity for many years. The two auxiliary bishops and other clergy involved in the investigation reached a consensus that Nienstedt would have to resign.
Piché and Cozzens then flew to Washington with Nienstedt to meet with the nuncio to reach a “pastoral resolution”; i.e. a smooth resignation. Although they called Griffith after the meeting to say that such a resolution was in the offing, a subsequent one-on-one between Nienstedt and Viganò led to the nuncio’s telling the bishops that he didn’t think the allegations were that serious, and that the investigation should be halted.
A group of about 100 conservative Facebook employees have formed an internal organization whose aim is to combat a liberal company culture considered by many to be intolerant of different views.
The group was started by a post on the social network company’s internal message board last week, as reported by The New York Times on Tuesday.
“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views,” posted Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer, according to the NY Times. “We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
The internal group has come to be known as “FB’ers for Political Diversity,” its goal being to allow for increased ideological diversity within the Facebook company.
Recently, Facebook has garnered controversy both for concerns over how the site shares personal data and allegations of political bias, especially censorship of conservatives.
For example, in January, Facebook took down the socially conservative Warriors for Christ ministry page, which had about 225,000 followers, accusing it of hate speech and bullying.
While promoting its academic programs on Facebook, The Franciscan University of Steubenville had their ads censored due to them including a crucifix.
The Vatican has removed from its official account a comment made by Pope Francis in which he appeared to endorse sexual orientation change efforts therapy for youth.
Also called “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy,” the practice involves using counseling to reduce or even remove same-sex attraction in an individual.
Following the World Meeting of Families gathering in Dublin, Ireland, Francis was asked his opinion on what parents should do if their children appear to be homosexual.
“When it shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself after 20 years,” the pontiff said, according to The Guardian.
However, the Vatican later omitted the comment about psychiatric help. The French publication AFP quoted an unnamed spokeswoman on Monday who explained that the change was made to better reflect Francis’ views.
“When the pope referred to ‘psychiatry,’ it is clear that he was doing it to highlight an example of ‘things that can be done.’ But with that word he didn’t mean to say that it (homosexuality) was a ‘mental illness,'” explained the spokeswoman.
The pope’s comments came after the World Meeting of Families, a major Catholic Church gathering that takes place every three years and focuses on issues of marriage and the family.
Hosanna is a word we love to say in our churches, especially on Palm Sunday. The multitude of Jews and others who gathered as Jesus entered Jerusalem on that day shouted out the word.
But few Christians today know the word’s origin, how the Jews used it in the Old Testament, or why its meaning shifted in the New Testament. Many Christians assume hosanna was always a Jewish word of praise to God, but in the Old Testament—in Psalm 118:25—the root was more like an urgent cry for help that would, in context, lead to the nation prospering and not being destroyed.
The word Christians use today is the Greeks’ creation. They used Greek letters to create the pronunciation of a Hebrew phrase: hoshiya na, meaning “Save, please!” Some sources also reference this phrase as yasha (deliver or save) plus anna or ‘na(to beg or beseech), but the resultant meaning is similar: “Please, I beg you to save us!”
In one sense, it was a desperate cry—much like a drowning person would yell out for rescue. But it was even more than that; it was an oppressed people’s petition for freedom.
An Oppressed People
The Jews were looking for their Messiah but their expectations were skewed. When Jesus came they misunderstood His Father-ordained mission. They awaited a mighty deliverer who could free them from Rome’s control. They didn’t understand their own prophetic teachings that Messiah, Israel’s hope, would first come as a suffering servant before He would come as a conquering King.
When Jesus—Yeshua—arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they expected the conquering Christ who would restore political power to the Jewish people and set up His Kingdom. John MacArthur wrote, “They thought the kingdom was coming. He knew judgment was coming. They thought they would crown Him. He knew they would kill him.”
The Jews didn’t understand how their Old Testament Scriptures pointed to Jesus as a Savior, Prophet, Priest and King.
Basically, Jesus surprised His people. Instead of attacking the hated Romans, He attacked the Pharisees and Sadducees. He pointed out the religious apostasy in the nation.
Even shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus’ disciples still questioned the timing of the Kingdom. The apostle Peter asked Jesus, “Are you now going to restore the kingdom?”
A Shift in Meaning
Psalm 118:26 hints at why the meaning of “hosanna” changed. The verse begins, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!” The Psalmist knew God would answer his and Israel’s cry for help.
John Piper wrote that, because of this shift from begging for help to recognizing God would send help, the word hosanna came to mean, “Hooray for Salvation! It’s coming! It’s here! Salvation! Salvation!” It was a personal, joy-filled exclamation of confidence in God and praise for His provision.
I have to smile, because so many expressions of hosanna in Scripture include an exclamation mark at the end! It’s truly an emphatic statement. While hosanna is not the same word as hallelujah, both words—for the Christ-follower—represent a response of joyous praise.
Jesus Received Their Praises
Messiah came riding into Jerusalem on a humble donkey, not on an elegant steed. He knew the future. He would sit on a throne in Heaven. But He also knew His time had not yet come. Psalm 118 describes a conqueror. It’s a psalm read by the Jews at Passover, part of the Messianic expectation. Salvation would come.
We might wonder whether the people understood the implications of how the humble Messiah King arrived in Jerusalem.
The donkey He rode was prophesied in the book of Zechariah. We find a clue about the significance of the clothes strewn before Jesus in 2 Kings 9:13. When Jehu was declared king, the people took off their outer garments and placed them under Jehu’s Feet. The people recognized Jesus as “King.”
But John 12:13 tells us the people also placed palm branches in Jesus’ path. “Palm branches are always associated in the Old Testament with celebrations,” John MacArthur wrote.
Jesus deserved the praise. He has always and will always deserve praise, honor, and worship. John MacArthur wrote of that first Palm Sunday. “Jesus was officially creating His own coronation. He is the Messiah. He is the King. He will not deny their hosannas.”
On Thursday, a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressed the Church’s official position against Proposition 2, a medical marijuana initiative that’s scheduled to be on the ballot in Utah in November.
I’ve been watching this issue for months, ever since the Church’s May announcement that it had “grave concerns about this initiative and the serious adverse consequences that could follow if it were adopted.”
At that time, the LDS Church urged voters “to read the attached memorandum and to make their own judgment.” On Thursday, that tone seemed to be replaced with a more decisive opposition: the Church wants voters to defeat this measure, and emailed the state’s Mormons to fight the issue.
According to the message sent to church members on Thursday, the proposition creates “a serious threat to health and public safety, especially for our youth and young adults, by making marijuana generally available with few controls.”
It’s important to remember that the LDS statement does not oppose all medical use of marijuana in all places. In fact, the position is rather nuanced: the Church acknowledges that medical marijuana can be a viable treatment for some people who are suffering; it simply does not believe that this particular ballot measure is the best way to help those people without opening the door to recreational use, which it opposes. Instead, the Church advocates stricter controls, saying that medical marijuana must be prescribed by a physician and dispensed at a pharmacy.
It will be fascinating to see how this plays out. In April, a poll by the Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute found that three-quarters of Utah voters were in favor of legalizing medical marijuana in the state—a finding that repeated almost exactly the results from that same poll being administered two previous times.
1. The devil is out to destroy Christian leaders and Christian families. This tragedy is a prime example of that.
2. Christians need to start being honest, open, and transparent about the struggles in their personal lives and in their families, and need to stop trying to present everything as wonderful when it isn’t.
3. Millennials (people 35 and under) who have the opportunity to take on leadership roles need to be honest and admit it if they are not ready to handle the pressure and responsibility of leadership.
–BCNN1 Editors
Andrew Stoecklein, the 30-year-old pastor of Inland Hills Church in Chino, CA, attempted to commit suicide on Friday, August 24th, after a struggle with depression and anxiety. He was hospitalized, and succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. He leaves behind a wife and three sons.
The church released the following statement when it learned of the suicide attempt: “IHC Family and friends, please pray for our lead pastor, Andrew Stoecklein. He tried to take his own life Friday morning, and is now in the hospital on life support. We love and serve a God of miracles, and we ask you to press in and respond in prayer and in faith.”
The church released the following statement after Stoecklein’s passing:
“Inland Hills Church grieves with heavy hearts as our Lead Pastor Andrew Stoecklein was welcomed into Heaven on Saturday night after battling depression and anxiety. It’s not the outcome we hoped and prayed for, and today we grieve as a church family. In his time leading Inland Hills, Andrew reached so many with his warm wit, passionate heart for God, and teaching that always, always pointed others to Jesus. The loving husband, father, son, and friend that he was will continue to inspire us in leading others into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
“And in this tragedy, we encourage anyone who is hurting emotionally to ask for help. If you or anyone else is struggling, the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-TALK (8255) is a potentially life-saving resource.
“May we be a beacon of hope for the community, to rescue the hurting and honor the God that Andrew served so well.
“Andrew, we love you. And we always will. #godsgotthis #inlandhills”
Below is a sermon Andrew Stoecklein preached on Sunday, August 13th, just thirteen days before he committed suicide.
Kayla and Andrew Stoecklein on their way to a Chris Stapleton concert on August 17, 2018. (PHOTO: INSTAGRAM)
Kayla Stoecklein, wife of Pastor Andrew Stoecklein who died in a tragic suicide last week, has opened up in the aftermath of his death, revealing she is “completely heartbroken.”
Kayla and Andrew had three boys together. She wrote on Instagram, “Please pray for me and the boys. I don’t know how I am going to face this, I am completely heartbroken, lost, and empty. Never in a million years would I have imagined this would be the end of his story.”
Her full message is below.
Last night, the love of my life, the father of my children and the pastor of our incredible church took his last breath and went to be with Jesus. It wasn’t the miracle I was hoping for but he is now in heaven with his dad, free of pain, free of depression and anxiety.
He was an amazing husband, he truly made me better, made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world, and he loved me so deeply. We fit so well together, we were one. He was an amazing daddy, his three boys are going to miss him so much. He had such a unique and special relationship with each of them. He was an incredibly gifted teacher, communicator, and pastor. He was special, one of a kind and will be missed by thousands of people all around the world.
Please pray for me and the boys. I don’t know how I am going to face this, I am completely heartbroken, lost, and empty. Never in a million years would I have imagined this would be the end of his story.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions, please tell someone. Please make sure you’re not alone, and please call a friend or family member before you make that irreversible decision. You are loved and valued more than you know! #godsgotthis
Kayla and Andrew Stoecklein on their way to a Chris Stapleton concert on August 17, 2018. (PHOTO: INSTAGRAM)
Kayla Stoecklein, wife of Pastor Andrew Stoecklein who died in a tragic suicide last week, has written an open letter via blog post to her husband as she and the Inland Hills Church wrestle with the effects of his death.
She prefaced the blog post with the following statement on Instagram:
While Andrew’s dad was battling leukemia we clinged to the phrase “God’s Got This.”
It was Andrew’s idea to create a blog so that people could follow along the journey. Andrew was incredibly passionate about the phrase “God’s Got This.”
We have sent hundreds of thousands of wristbands all over the world with those precious words embedded on it.
Our family is still holding tight to that phrase even now. We are choosing to believe that “God’s Got This.” We don’t understand it, we hate it, it makes us angry, we can’t even breathe, but we are trusting God.
This morning I wrote a post to my husband, if he was here these are the words I would say to him.
Andrew, we will keep “God’s Got This” alive in your name.
Below is her message to her husband:
To My Andrew,
It’s only been 3 days. Nothing can take away the suffocating pain I feel now you are gone. I miss every part of you, I see you everywhere. I replay the events of that fateful day over and over again in my mind wishing I could have done things differently. Wishing I could have held your hand one more time and prayed over you and told you how much I love you, how much I believe in you, and how God’s got this too.
You were right all along, I truly didn’t understand the depths of your depression and anxiety. I didn’t understand how real and how relentless the spiritual attacks were. The pain, the fear, and the turmoil you must have been dealing with every single day is unimaginable. The enemy knew what an amazing man you were. The enemy knew God had huge plans for your life. The enemy saw how God was using your gifts, abilities, and unique teaching style to reach thousands of lives for Him. The enemy hated it and he pursued you incessantly. Taunting you and torturing you in ways that you were unable to express to anyone.
Andrew I want to tell you from the depths of my heart and my pain I am so sorry.
I am so sorry you were so scared,
I am so sorry you felt so alone,
I am so sorry you felt misunderstood,
I am so sorry you felt betrayed and deeply hurt by the words and actions of others,
I am so sorry you were fighting a dark spiritual war virtually alone,
I am so sorry you were unable to fully get the help and support you needed.
I wish I had one more chance to hold you and cry with you and encourage you. I wish you could see the outpouring of love from people all over the world who have been impacted by your story. I wish you could hold your boys one more time and tell them goodbye. I wish we could go on one more trip together, just the two of us. I am not ready to say goodbye. I am so madly and deeply in love with you. Every part of me longs to be with you. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t function and I feel so lost without you. You were my life. I was so proud to be your wife Andrew. I was so proud to sit in the front row and watch you in your sweet spot on stage. I was always so amazed by you, every single day. You could do anything you set your mind to! You were handy, you made every home we lived in look beautiful inside and out. You were creative, you were funny, you were thoughtful, you were passionate, you had vision, you had charisma, and you were so special. You are irreplaceable Andrew. There will never be another man like you.
I want to tell you that I am never going to stop fighting for you. I will continue to tell our community and our world what an amazing man you were. Your name will be honored and you will be remembered as a hero. You fought the good fight, and I can only imagine the incredible place God had prepared for you when you walked through the gates of heaven. I can only imagine what it must have felt like to see your dad again, healthy and strong. I can only imagine how much joy you must feel now that you are truly free. I wish I could be there with you, celebrating on the streets of gold. But for now, I will continue to live for you. I will raise our boys to be men of God, just like you were. Your name will live on in a powerful way. Your story has the power to save lives, change lives, and transform the way the Church supports pastors.
I love you so much and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life. When I think of you I will smile, knowing that I will see you again one day. Thank you for 10 wonderful years together. Thank you for giving me the gift of three beautiful blue eyed boys who all resemble you. Thank you for choosing me, for believing in me, and for showing me how to live fearlessly.
Until we meet again I will cling to my Father in heaven. He will carry me through every second, every minute, every hour of every day. I read a verse this morning and I know God is reminding me that even now, in the midst of my deepest pain that He has got this.
“Because you are close to me and always available my confidence will never be shaken, for I experience your wrap-around presence every moment.” Psalm 16:8 (TPT)
With all my heart and all my love,
Your Girl
The prayers of Christians across the nation and around the world are surely with Mrs. Stoecklein, her boys, and the Inland Hills Church family.
1 Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.
2 I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
3 And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.
5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
We are in a series of messages titled “Praying Through the Bible: A Series on Every Passage and Verse Regarding Prayer in the Bible.” The purpose of this series is to encourage and motivate you to pray to the God of the Bible. We highlighted each of these over 500 verses and passages in the Prayer Motivator Devotional Bible. So far, we have completed 313 messages in this series.
This is message #314 titled, Don’t Worry, Pray, and be Happy! Part 1.
Warren Wiersbe said, “If anybody had an excuse for worrying, it was the Apostle Paul. His beloved Christian friends at Philippi were disagreeing with one another, and he was not there to help them. We have no idea what Euodia and Syntyche were disputing about, but whatever it was, it was bringing division into the church. Along with the potential division at Philippi, Paul had to face division among the believers at Rome (Phil. 1:14–17). Added to these burdens was the possibility of his own death! Yes, Paul had a good excuse to worry—but he did not! Instead, he took time to explain to us the secret of victory over worry. What is worry? The Greek word translated “anxious” (careful) in Philippians 4:6 means “to be pulled in different directions.” Our hopes pull us in one direction; our fears pull us the opposite direction; and we are pulled apart! The Old English root from which we get our word “worry” means “to strangle.” If you have ever really worried, you know how it does strangle a person! In fact, worry has definite physical consequences: headaches, neck pains, ulcers, even back pains. Worry affects our thinking, our digestion, and even our coordination.”
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says, “In these verses the apostle first gave a general plea for unity and steadfastness and then a specific plea to two women. Therefore introduces this exhortation and applies what he wrote in chapter 3 about sanctification and glorification. The apostle’s affection for this congregation is revealed by his love and longing for them and his calling them his brothers, his joy and crown, and his dear friends. These saints were to their spiritual father what victory wreaths were to runners in the Greek races. The believers were exhorted to stand firm in the Lord. Two women, Euodia and Syntyche, did not live up to the meanings of their names. “Euodia” means a “prosperous journey.” “Syntyche” means a “pleasant acquaintance.” Since Paul pleaded with these two to agree with each other in the Lord, it seems that they were causing dissension in the assembly. This helps explain Paul’s earlier plea for unity. At one time Euodia and Syntyche contended at Paul’s side in the cause of the gospel. But as he wrote they were not in harmony with each other. They were contentious, rather than content. The exact identity of Paul’s loyal yokefellow is not known. Some say “yokefellow” is a proper name. Paul knew he could count on him to work with the women and bring them back to fellowship with each other and with the Lord. Clement and other fellow workers had also contended for the gospel with these women. Sometimes the trials and pressures of life make it almost impossible to be happy. But Paul did not tell his readers to be happy. He encouraged them to rejoice in the Lord. In fact, he said it twice in verse 4. Christ is the One in whom the sphere of rejoicing was to take place. Surely there are many circumstances in which Christians cannot be happy. But they can always rejoice in the Lord and delight in Him. Paul himself was an excellent example of one who had inner joy when external circumstances—such as persecution, imprisonment, the threat of death—were against him.”
The first century Roman poet Ovid said, “Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
Many people today are not happy. One reason why is because so many are worrying — worrying about the future, worrying about their finances, worrying about their families. They have not taken heed to the Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”: “In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double.” Many have mistakenly attributed that song to Bob Marley, however Marley died seven years before the song was written. But long before Marley and McFerrin were making music to make people happy, the Apostle Paul told us the same thing but he included one of the main secrets of happiness and that is prayer: “Don’t Worry, PRAY and Be Happy.” And by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he showed us the bridge that can get us from the dark shore of worry to the bright land of happiness, and that bridge is prayer.
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Now, if you are with us today, and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your first prayer needs to be what we call the Sinner’s Prayer. First, please understand that you are a sinner, just as I am, and that you have broken God’s laws. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”
Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
Now this is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.
Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.
If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! Congratulations on trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. You have done the most important thing in life. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
Welcome to BCNN1’s The Gospel According to Greenleaf Episode #26. This episode is titled, The Devil is Still Trying to Destroy the Family, With a Mention of the Pastor Stoecklein Situation
The first episode of the third season of Greenleaf focuses on the crumbling marriage of Bishop Greenleaf and Lady Mae. Over the past two seasons, both have had major secrets about themselves and their past revealed. And, now, those secrets are threatening to tear them apart.
What many people don’t realize when it seems like their family is falling apart is that that is exactly what the devil wants to happen. Most people assume that the problems are just between the husband and wife or between the parents and children or between different factions in the extended family. Few people realize that the devil is behind most of the problems in families today. He hates the first institution that God established and he has always sought to tear it down. He does not like loving marriages, he does not like positive parent-child relationships, he does not like harmonious relations between members of extended families. Anything good that God creates, he seeks to corrupt and tear down.
And, he works over time if that family is involved in the church or other Christian ministry. Why? Because, if he can destroy a family involved in ministry, he can kill two birds with one stone — wrecking the family and severely wounding a ministry. (Of course, any true church or ministry that puts God first and keeps the Gospel central is never truly defeated. They may suffer some setbacks but the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.)
A recent example of the devil’s attack on a Christian family involved in church ministry is the tragic suicide of Pastor Andrew Stoecklein this weekend. Whatever else can be said about the matter, one must admit that Satan got in some heavy licks. Now, a church with hundreds of members is without their pastor and has a heavy cloud hanging over them for months and years to come. And a wife and three boys are without their husband and father.
First Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” The devil certainly did some devouring of the real-life Stoecklein family just as he is doing some devouring of the fictional Greenleaf family. If we as Christians believe what the Bible says and accept it as reality, we ought to be encouraged to be even more sober-minded and vigilant. We ought to be more eager to fight for our families because we know that the devil is actually behind the conflicts and division that we face. He is doing what the Bible says he would be doing, but we must not let him win.
Let’s Pray
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In closing, if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, allow me to show you how you can be forgiven of your wicked sins of the past no matter how dark, God is available to hear your prayer of confession and to hear you ask to be saved from sin and from the punishment of sin which is eternal hell and separation from God. And you can begin a light-filled relationship with God Almighty today.
First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s laws. You have done some bad things. You have broken the commandments of God. So have I. And so has the Pope. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” We die physically because of sin and we go to hell to burn forever, to be tormented forever because of our sin. God does not put us into hell; we put ourselves into hell because of our sin.
Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ, the loving Lord of glory, preached more on hell than anybody in the Bible. He preached more on hell than he did about Heaven. He said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Now that is bad news, and I know most people do not want to hear any bad news. But you have to hear the bad news because the good news is good news because there is bad news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins. He is the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world, your sins and mine. And all we have to do is trust Him and believe that He died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you and me so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.
And please believe these words found in Romans 10:9 & 13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Saved from what? Saved from sin and the punishment of sin which is hell.
If you believe in your heart on the Lord Jesus Christ, that He died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer and mean it from your heart: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life — even some of the sins being brought out in this show called Greenleaf. I am sorry for my sins, and today, please have mercy upon me a sinner. I believe with all of my heart that You died for me, was buried, and rose again. Now, Lord I pray that You would fill me with Your Holy Spirit and help me to repent of my sins and to follow You for the rest of my life for Your glory, praise, and honor, and, from this point on, to be the shining light that You want me to be. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray, and for His sake, Amen.
Beloved friend, if you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! Congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read my pamphlet titled, “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door.” Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
Until next time, my beloved, may God bless you and keep you. We look forward to seeing you for the next Gospel According to Greenleaf podcast.
Ruven Meulenberg (PHOTO: ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT)
A former youth mentor at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California was convicted by a jury Wednesday of molesting twin teenage boys.
Meulenberg, who the church claims as only a volunteer, was accused of committing the molestations between May 2016 and May 2017 against the twin brothers he mentored at Saddleback Church Youth Center. The actions allegedly occurred off church property.
Deputy District Attorney Courtney Thom reportedly described for jurors earlier this month an incident that happened when Meulenberg took the twin brothers to a movie theatre. The youth mentor is said to have encouraged one of the boys to sit on his lap and proceeded to kiss the 14-year-old boy on the on the head, cheek and mouth.
Meulenberg allegedly asked the boy to switch seats with his brother after the boy said that he didn’t feel comfortable kissing Meulenberg. Meulenberg proceed to molest the other boy in a similar fashion.
“This occurred in isolation in the back row of a darkened movie theater,” Thom said. “This is not saying hello or goodbye. This is the defendant manipulating his position of trust and confusing these young boys to see how far he could go.”
On the way home from the theater, Meulenberg had one of the boys sit between his legs in the backseat of a car.
Once the boys got home, they told their mother what had occured. The mother then contacted the church to report the boy’s allegations.
In statement released last May, Saddleback Church explained that a church representative called the police on May 24, 2017 to report the allegations. Meulenberg was arrested the next day.
Pastors Demetrius Williams of Community Baptist Church in Milwaukee (with microphone) and John K. Patterson of Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Milwaukee, left, speak at a news conference with Common Ground, a community organization. (Common Ground)
They were stuck on the side of a suburban highway, waiting for assistance. Instead, what they got was a jarring question from a sheriff’s deputy and a background check.
On the way home from a fishing trip in May, Demetrius Williams and John Patterson — both pastors at Baptist churches in Milwaukee — got a flat tire on their boat trailer. They pulled to the edge of the bustling interstate and called an insurance company. As they waited for a tow truck to help with a spare tire, a Waukesha County Sheriff’s car pulled up behind them, lights flashing.
A deputy, Erik Michalsen, approached the two pastors in the Chevrolet Silverado. After the men explained they were awaiting assistance for the flat, Michalsen, the men say, asked them if they had any drugs, guns or alcohol in the truck.
“Sir, we’re both pastors,” Williams remembers explaining. “We wouldn’t have anything like that.”
When the deputy asked for both men’s licenses, Williams felt himself growing agitated, confused at why they were being treated like criminals when they hadn’t even been pulled over and should have gotten help. Stay calm, he thought to himself. There’s no telling what might happen. When he asked the deputy why it was necessary see their licenses, the deputy said it was standard procedure.
Deputy Michalsen returned the licenses 10 minutes later and smacked an orange sticker — used to mark abandoned vehicles — on the side of the boat, even though the men had explained they were staying with the boat and waiting for service. The pastors were rattled.
“This isn’t right,” Williams said. “We’re sitting here waiting for roadside assistance, and this man is treating us like we’re criminals.”
By now, this story probably is not surprising. It is just the latest in a series of cautionary tales about doing ordinary things while black in America: going to Starbucks, mowing the lawn, eating at Subway, staying in an Airbnb, golfing. These stories do not end in death or great tragedy, but they are not without consequence. They are evidence of fear and tension tangled up in racially-charged encounters that unfold every day.
The casket of late Aretha Franklin arrives at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History for a viewing on August 28, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan.
Sabrina Owens started to consider how to bid her beloved aunt Aretha Franklin farewell before the world even knew the legendary singer was ill.
“I tend to be a very organized person,” Owens said. “I started thinking about this back in January, because a bunch of family members were headed out of the country in a few months and I was worried something might happen while everyone was away.”
The intensely private Franklin family went public earlier this month with the news that the woman known as “The Queen of Soul” was gravely ill and receiving hospice care.
Days later she died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Franklin was 76.
Everything in excellence
Owens told CNN a great deal of thought has gone into how to honor her aunt, who, she said, didn’t leave behind any final instructions.
Franklin’s family has been intent on doing everything in the excellent manner the singer was known for, her niece said.
“We know that she would have wanted nothing but the best,” Owens said. “She gave the best, she expected the best and she would want her fans to have the best.”
The result has been a week’s worth of activities in Franklin’s hometown of Detroit meant to pay homage to a woman who helped define the city.
Franklin began lying in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit Tuesday.
Her body — clothed in red from head to toe to pay tribute to her honorary membership in the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and surrounded by massive rose floral arrangements — will then be transported for a four-hour viewing Thursday at the parish where her father once pastored, New Bethel Baptist Church.
A special concert titled “A People’s Tribute to the Queen” will be held Thursday night at Chene Park Detroit Amphitheater, followed by a star-studded funeral set for Friday at 10 a.m. at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit.
Owens said a group of family, friends and supporters dubbed “Aretha’s angels” have worked tirelessly to pull it all together.
“I know people think two weeks is a long time to arrange all this, but it’s really not with all that has to be done,” Owens said. “Two weeks seems like a lot of time, but you need that time in order to do this right.”
Working together
There has been a great deal of coordination between the family, the museum, the funeral home, the church where the funeral will take place and the city of Detroit.
George Hamilton, interim director and board member for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, said they are used to serving the public.
After all, more than 300,000 visitors a year come through the museum’s doors to view exhibits such as “And Still We Rise: Our Journey Through African American History and Culture,” a 22,000 square foot exhibition that tells the story of the African-American journey from Africa to present day.
But Hamilton said being a part of the home-going activities for a star of Franklin’s magnitude has been quite different.
“There are some challenges in hosting an event for an international jewel of a performer like Aretha Franklin,” Hamilton said. “She is, after all, a queen.”
Hamilton added that every detail — from additional security to how much water would be needed for the parched crowds standing in the heat — had been accounted for.
Most importantly, he said, has been delivering what the family wants.
“The position we have taken is honoring the family’s wishes,” Hamilton said. “Their direction has been that they want this to be an opportunity for the public and her fans to offer their respects. We all came together pretty quickly for the Queen to make sure that happened.”
O’Neil Swanson II of the Swanson Funeral Home handed out memorial cards Tuesday to those waiting to view Franklin’s body.
He talked to CNN about all the work that has gone into making this week run smoothly.
“You know the saying ‘Leave no stone unturned?’ That’s exactly what you have to do,” he said. “You have to coordinate with law enforcement to make sure routes are clear for the funeral service. It’s important to contact the clergy that’s going to be involved in the service.”
A special hearse transported Aretha Franklin
“So a lot of that includes planning,” Swanson added. “And, of course, she was such a unique person who impacted lives, not only in Detroit, but in this country and really all over the world.”
Not just a star
Owens said she drew inspiration from the various parts of Franklin’s life to aid in her planning.
Franklin’s songs and appearances with Martin Luther King Jr. helped to make her one of the faces of the Civil Rights Movement and her niece said she thought of Detroit’s first black mayor Coleman A. Young and civil rights icon Rosa Park’s services when she decided to have Franklin lie in repose.
The tribute concert planned for Thursday celebrates her dedication to the industry she inhabited for more than six decades and Owens said the funeral service itself will pay homage to Franklin’s gospel roots and her love of church.
“We knew we wanted to have certain gospel artists like The Williams Brothers and Pastor Shirley Caesar,” Owens said. “And there were other people who called us wanting to participate.”
Knowing that they wanted to keep the funeral service private for friends, family and special guests made the family sensitive to providing Franklin’s fans an extended opportunity to say goodbye, Owens explained.
And in the midst of all the planning, the family still hasn’t had time to grasp that the matriarch of their family, who loved them fiercely and would often text, is no longer here to share her wisdom.
“We really haven’t not had much of an opportunity to have private moments,” Owens said. “I know the world lost the Queen, but her sons lost their mother, her nieces and nephews lost their aunt … we lost a family member and we haven’t had a chance to come together as a group to truly realize that we have lost one who loved us so much and was so loyal to us.”
“It’s going to be very difficult after all this is over and people have all gone away,” Owens added.
So how are they holding it all together and getting it all done?
Owens said it’s all come together with a bit of divine assistance.
“We are being guided by the hand of God,” Owens said. “Guided by God and by Aretha Franklin.”
She was the “Queen of Soul.” He was “The Black Prince.”
Her voice transformed music. His sermons changed preaching.
And while classics such as “Think” and “Chain of Fools” became her signature songs, his sermon on “The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest” became such a pulpit hit that it was added to the Library of Congress.
No tribute to Aretha Franklin would be complete without citing the massive impact her father, the Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, had on her. He shaped her sound and style; some say he had the most profound influence on his daughter’s life.
C.L. Franklin was a superstar before his daughter became one. His unique style of preaching drew such a wide audience that his sermons were sold in record stores, and pastors around the nation rescheduled their Sunday evening services to avoid competing with his popular radio show. One preaching critic described his voice as “explosive and filled with a river of music.”
“From when she started touring with her father until the day she left this earth, she was always C.L. Franklin’s daughter and she was proud of that,” says Jonathan L. Walton, a Harvard University religion professor who befriended Franklin when Harvard awarded her an honorary degree in 2014.
At the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, C.L. Franklin commanded $4,000 an appearance. By comparison, Elvis Presley received $7,500 for an appearance in 1956, says Nick Salvatore, author of “Singing in a Strange Land,” the definitive biography of the late preacher.
C.L. Franklin spotted his daughter’s musical gifts early and arranged piano lessons for her. He would later encourage and defend her decision to move from gospel to pop.
“The two of them had a mutual admiration society. He was prouder of her than he could possibly express,” Salvatore says.
If you want to understand Franklin, start with her father. The two had similarities that went beyond their soulful voices.
They both demanded respect
If one thing was associated with Aretha Franklin other than her voice, it was her purse.
“It didn’t matter where she sang or who she sang for, she took her purse onstage. Even when she performed before President Obama at the Kennedy Center, she laid her purse atop the piano.
“She did it because she insisted on getting paid in cash first. After getting her money, she’d stuff stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside and carry the purse onstage so she could keep an eye on it.
“She carried it everywhere. That purse became a symbol,” says Martha Simmons, co-editor of “Preaching with Sacred Fire,” an anthology on black preaching. “It just endeared her to so many women. Her attitude was, ‘I don’t care about no singing for the queen or some great hall, y’all watch my purse.'”
Franklin carried the purse because she had seen so many black musicians get ripped off. Demanding money up front was her way of demanding respect; she wasn’t going to play the part of the naive black artist taken advantage of by unscrupulous white promoters.
Her father demanded the same kind of respect in a time and place where it could have gotten him killed.
C.L. Franklin was born in rural Mississippi to a poor sharecropper’s family. He lived in the belly of the beast; he later said he experienced “segregation in the raw.” When he was a young man, he said, a mob of whites in a nearby county abducted a black man for some imagined slight. They publicly tortured him for seven hours and then burned his still-breathing body. This is the world he knew.
Yet C.L. Franklin built a life in defiance of that kind of terror and humiliation. He demanded respect, and it came in many ways.
People often talked about his daughter’s regal style of dress: floor-length furs, “fierce red lipstick,” the elaborate hats she wore like crowns. But her father dressed like royalty first. He wore tailored suits, alligator shoes and diamond stickpins, and he always rode in a late-model Cadillac (usually driven by a church deacon).
And he acted like royalty, even if it endangered his life.
Once when his Cadillac broke down in a Southern city, a group of white toughs encircled him, calling him boy and teasing him, Salvatore recounts in “Singing in a Strange Land.”
“Instead of responding, he walked through the mocking crowd to an auto dealership and brought a brand new car and paid cash for it on the spot,” Salvatore notes.
C.L. Franklin’s material excesses would be easy to caricature today — just another money-grubbing pastor, some might say. But his sartorial style sent a message to his parishioners — don’t take a backseat to anyone — and he backed it up with his civil rights activism.
Before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached his “I Have a Dream” speech at the iconic 1963 March on Washington, he gave it two months earlier at a massive civil rights rally in Detroit — organized by C.L. Franklin. King was a close friend of the pastor, who often raised money for King.
Before the Rev. Jesse Jackson told people “I am somebody,” C.L. Franklin was preaching a similar message of uplift to the auto workers, Southern migrants and other blacks wounded by segregation who came to his New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit.
“If there was a theme in his sermons, it was ‘you are somebody,’ ” Salvatore says. “But he was not only preaching you are somebody. He was preaching that there are people who want to make certain you never become somebody.”
Aretha Franklin didn’t absorb that fierce sense of self-belief from just listening to her father. She saw it reflected in the black celebrities who stayed at her childhood home.
C.L. Franklin was no dour minister. He was the consummate party host who drew some of the biggest names in 20th century black America to his plush home in the exclusive LaSalle Boulevard section of Detroit. The singer Sam Cooke would drop by and muss Franklin’s curly hair when she was a girl. The gospel great Mahalia Jackson was such a frequent visitor that she would often go into the family’s kitchen to put on a pot of collard greens soon after arriving.
Franklin grew up surrounded by black excellence. Musicians like B.B. King, Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughn often came by. Aretha Franklin’s childhood friend was singer Smokey Robinson. It was no accident that Motown records came out of Detroit. The city was a magnet for black artists, and C.L. Franklin and his New Bethel Baptist Church were among its star attractions.
In many ways, he was the prototype of black celebrity pastors long before the Rev. Ike and T.D. Jakes came along.
“He was a pop icon before we had pop icons,” Simmons says.
They refused to stay in their lane
It was one of the most remarkable moments in Franklin’s career. Luciano Pavarotti was expected to perform at the 1998 Grammy Awards when the famous tenor called in sick with a sore throat. Someone needed to fill in for him.
Enter Franklin — and her purse. She could have stuck with one of her classic R&B songs, but she decided to sing one of Pavarotti’s signature arias, “Nessun Dorma.” She nailed it, even hitting the song’s celebrated high notes. Some critics later said she somehow made “Nessun Dorma” her own.
Franklin’s performance illustrated one of her gifts. Her voice couldn’t be confined to any genre. It went wherever she wanted it to, as Matt Thompson described in a tribute in The Atlantic:
“Her producers would discover that Aretha didn’t have to forsake or fuse anything; she was not required to pick a lane — secular or gospel, pop or soul. Her talent simply didn’t work that way.”
Neither did her father’s.
C.L. Franklin became one of the most admired preachers in the 20th century because he blended so many elements in the pulpit. He took the moans and cadences from blues music he heard in the Mississippi Delta, mixed them with political activism, tossed in some fancy biblical exegesis and topped it off with “whooping,” a form of black preaching where the pastor uses rhythmic vocal pyrotechnics to bring the sermon to a celebratory end that elicits an emotional response from the audience.
In the parlance of the black church, C.L. Franklin blended “learning and burning.”
“He was the master of the mixed sermon,” says Walton, the Harvard professor and author of “A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World.”
“He was, ‘I’m going to give you something intellectual, I’m going to put some dessert on it, and then I’m going to shout you out of this place,” Walton says.
If you think his daughter had her operatic moment, so did her father — virtually every Sunday, says Simmons in “Preaching with Sacred Fire.”
“Whooping can be thought of as parallel to great opera,” Simmons said. “The tonality enhances the beauty as well as the depth of impact. The hearer is more readily caught up in the sermon, as one may be caught up in the dramatic power of opera.”
C.L. Franklin was one of the first to encourage his daughter to go into any lane she wanted. It’s easy to forget, but Aretha Franklin made a daring move when she crossed over from gospel and decided to record R&B. During the early 1960s, gospel artists were often forced to stay in the pulpit. You can’t serve two masters, people said. When Sam Cooke switched from gospel to R&B, many fans were angry and felt betrayed.
The average preacher might have insisted his daughter stay in gospel. But not C.L. Frankin. He called her a “stone cold singer” who would infuse the black church into any song she performed.
“He himself lived in multiple worlds. He loved B.B. King. He loved Ray Charles. Jazz folks came constantly to his house,” says Salvatore.
Some say C.L. Franklin lived too deeply in multiple worlds. He separated from Franklin’s mother and never remarried. He had frequent dalliances with women. There were rumors of drug use, heavy drinking. He even once fathered a child with a teenage parishioner, says Simmons.
“He absolutely had a dark side,” she says. “The stories are everywhere about the amount of drinking he did, multiple relationships and certainly the underage parishioner he impregnated — that was his lowest point. It was horrific.”
Simmons believes some of that dark side came from how C.L. Franklin compensated for his rough upbringing. He was self-conscious about his lack of education, his “oppressive” upbringing in Mississippi, even his skin color, she said. The clothes, the flashy cars — it was like he was determined to never again be that poor black boy growing up in Mississippi.
“He had a lot to outrun,” she says. “How do you outrun being poor, not getting a college education, being dark skinned and looked down on by your own people? His trying to outrun some of that led to some of his excesses.”
They spoke to people from their ‘inners’
Chuck Rainey, a bass player who performed with Aretha Franklin, tells a story in The New Yorker about an unusual exchange he once had with the singer.
He said Franklin’s voice was so riveting that she would sometimes knock her band off the beat. He said she came to him one day, held his hand and told him:
“Chuck, don’t listen to me too intensely. I know what I do to people. I need for the bass to be where it is so I can sing.”
Franklin had what some people call “soul.” It’s that ineffable quality some singers have. They might not have the most melodious or technically perfect voice, but when they sing people feel it. Ray Charles captured that quality when, while describing Franklin’s singing in Salvatore’s book, he said, “She always sang from her inners.”
So did her father.
Go to YouTube and listen to C.L. Franklin’s sermons. You hear a man who knew how to preach from his “inners.” He didn’t just holler, he connected emotionally with people.
C.L. Franklin’s ability to connect wasn’t just charisma; it was craft. He worked for years on his preaching, refining sermons, listening to other preachers and creating an ongoing workshop in his home where he invited more educated preachers to critique his sermons.
Simmons says he was a master of using metaphors and relating messages to current events. He redefined sermons that had long been preached by other black pastors, such as “Dry Bones in the Valley.”
“He would tell you a story and he would sit you into that text,” says Walton, the Harvard professor. “And when you listen to it, it’s not enough to read it — you feel like you’re literally there.”
C.L. Franklin did for certain popular sermons what his daughter did for Otis Redding’s original version of “Respect”– she made it hers.
“When he did the ‘Dry Bones’ sermon, no one else really wanted to try to do the ‘Dry Bones’ sermon again,” Simmons says. “After you heard C.L.’s version, you didn’t really want to hear any other version if you are a fan of whooping.”
His sermons connected with his listeners so much that he became a recording star before his daughter. He recorded at least 70 albums of sermons that were sold in the 1950s and ’60s. Some are still sold on the Internet and at religious and denominational conferences today.
“In the late ’50s and ’60s, you could go into any record store in the black community across the country and buy C.L. Franklin records,” says Salvatore.
Despite his triumphal life, C.L. Franklin’s ending was tragic. One summer evening in 1979, a group of burglars tried to enter his home. He confronted one with a loaded gun he kept there. Shots were exchanged. He was wounded in his right knee, but another bullet ruptured an artery in his right groin. He lingered in a coma for five years before dying in 1984.
His voice lives on, though. Simmons says he is “the most imitated African-American preacher in history.”
“When it comes to the world of black preaching, all roads go back to C.L. Franklin,” says Walton.
And when it comes to the world of Aretha Franklin, all roads lead back to her father.
Walton says that when he delivered a benediction at the Harvard ceremony where Franklin was honored, she burst into tears on stage as he paid homage to her father.
“She was the ‘Queen of Soul’ to the world, and she was in so many ways. She had entertained presidents and popes and kings and queens,” he says. “But she was always very clear that she was proud to be the daughter of the Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin. She had no problem still being recognized that way.”
Iran’s hardline government has sentenced four Christians to harsh prison terms for putting their faith in Jesus Christ.
Pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz and his wife Shamiram Issavi, who are ethnic Assyrian Christians, and Amin Afshar Naderi and Hadi Asgari, who are Christian converts from Islam, were sentenced to a combined total of 45 years in prison for allegedly conducting “illegal church activities” and spreading propaganda which reportedly “threaten national security.”
“These Christians were solely arrested for practicing their Christian faith, including attending Christmas gatherings and organizing house churches,” Mike Ansari of Heart4Iran, told CBN News.
In 2014, Pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz was arrested when plain-clothed security forces raided his home during a Christmas party. In 2017, an Iranian Revolutionary Court sentenced him, along with Hadi Asgari, to 10 years in prison for “forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security” in relation to their church activities. The same court sentenced Amin Afshar Naderi to five years in prison for allegedly insulting Islam.
In January 2018, Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Shamiram Issavi to five years in prison for “membership of a group with the purpose of disrupting national security” and another five years in prison for “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security.”
I was struck by the example of former President Jimmy Carter when I read that he lives in a modest home and has a frugal lifestyle. I think I would have a hard time living beneath my means if I had been President of the United States! It seems he is extremely content with what he has. What advice would you give someone looking for the same?
Seeking Contentment
Dear Seeking Contentment,
Jimmy Carter, our 39th president, now age 93, lives in a home he built himself back in 1961. The two-bedroom ranch appraised at $167,000, which is less than the median home price in Georgia, and the two Secret Service vehicles parked nearby.
He decided not to join corporate boards or speak for big money because he didn’t want to “capitalize financially” on being in the White House. He does not condemn those who do, but admits his ambition was never to be rich. He shops at Dollar General and flies on commercial airlines.
Carter lives comfortably and is content with his book income and an annual pension of $210,700. Nearly every weekend, he and Rosalynn walk to a friend’s home to have dinner on paper plates. He has helped renovate 4,300 homes in 14 countries with Habitat for Humanity, teaches Sunday School, and is committed to living a modest lifestyle.
The State of Discontentment
In spite of such an example, and many others who are like President Carter, there are millions of people who live in a state of perpetual discontentment. Arriving at the place where you know that “enough is enough” seems to be an elusive destination no matter how much or how little one has. This cycle of discontentment is fueled by a number of factors: our identity, our lack of understanding our purpose, and certainly the constant barrage of advertising that teaches us to be discontent with what we have.
Finding Contentment
True contentment will never be found in things of this world. It is found ultimately in the Lord. The Westminster Shorter Catechism declares that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But that gets muddied in society’s desire for more and more.
It boils down to one’s attitude and philosophy about money. Adopting a biblical perspective grants us the ability to become wise stewards who make smart decisions and find contentment in all situations. But it is a daily battle. We have to arm ourselves, both offensively and defensively, to live out what we believe.
